Unmodified versions of the viewer can be downloaded here: http://turdinc.kicks-ass.net/Msntv/viewer/
The the main benefit to the hacker's edition is it's modded to easily connect to a WebTV service. I'd stick with version 1.0 or 1.1 if you insist on using the original and want to connect to Zefie's server. The original 2.5 has sound but needed to be modified to connect to the service.
The only other changes that were done was changing the icon, splash image and doing some other edits with Resource Hacker ( http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/ ). I suppose you could take a 2.5 "hacker's edition" and revert some of the UI changes so it looks like the original but can functionally connect to the service.